Is This What It's Come To?
by Hailfax-McGee
Summary: Starving, Stealing, Fighting, Wanting. Imprisoned, Guilty, Mistaken, Misguided. Swiftly, Brutally, Undoubtably... alone.


Is This What It's Come To?

Hey guys this is just a little writing experiment I did. After overdosing on S.K. Millz (awesome god of a writer) and reading some Cormac McCarthy, I wanted to try a different writing style. This is a lot different from my normal style. Also please keep in mind that this was simply an experiment/writing exercise I did. However, I do like the way it came out.

This is inspired by the song 'This Could Be Anywhere In The World' by Alexisonfire. I'm not going to provide lyrics but it's a very good song. Listen to it.

This story is the depiction of a very depressing struggle that some people in the world have to - unfortunately - go through.

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Suite Life shows or any characters. I do not own the song 'This Could Be Anywhere In The World' by Alexisonfire.**

A boy lost and confused born to parents who tried so hard to give him everything he wanted. A mistake, they expected one. Got two. Already two too many.

Where is he? This could be anywhere in the world.

The first ten years were easiest and hardest. Cost more money. Diapers. Two boys constantly shitting themselves. Two dirty stinking messes. No thoughts, desires, ambitions, regrets. Living today not tomorrow or the next day. Together all by themselves. Their early days spent struggling for food. Told to steal.

Two boys doomed from the start.

Five more years. Harder. But cheaper. They learned to live without food. Sometimes for days. Them and others fight for food at dumpsters. Hurt or be hurt. No sharing.

At fifteen he killed for the first time. For food. A halfeaten loaf of bread tossed aside by a laughing and jolly man. The ones of the city with money gathered at the dumpsters to watch the fights. Sometimes offering rewards of bread or nickels. They throw their sandwich scraps in the middle of the clawing and biting, punching mess. They laugh at the bloodshed before them. A new casino.

So funny to see children starve and fight and die.

Dropped out of school the next year. Last bit of hope vanished. To much work. Demanding. He found himself in the back alleys again fighting and stealing. He beat an old woman for her purse. She died the next day in the hospital. 36 dollars. Food for months.

The others found out. Learning about crime. So easy. So rewarding. The city becomes unsafe, possessed by ghosts. Ghosts with no homes.

Ghosts with no souls. Alone. Disconnected from themselves.

Dank air, cracked pavement. Not a cent to be spared. No money for repairs.

City falling apart. The darkest alleys possessed by children. The covered ones possessed by stronger, older men. They don't hesitate to break necks.

Outside and underneath signs promising hope and a better future and a chance at life people gathered praying. Endless crowds of lost and wary. A gunshot for that promise of hope. Shooter, killed. His gun can be sold. A man gets 80 dollars. Enough for food and water and a bus ticket away, far away.

But he was a lucky one, the rest too far consumed to move. Sucked in this portal of death. No chance. No luck. Mindless zombies care only about survival. Their next feeding.

He is caught in the fighting that breaks out underneath the salvation signs. Slips away, a bone cracked maybe broken. Don't know. Can't care. Tallies his losses. But what did he gain?

He stole a chunk of rotten meat. Didn't get to eat it before it got stolen from him. Experience. The way-it-is whispers on the wind.

Each decision he makes pushes him further and further from freedom. Trapping him like an animal between the ground and the sky. No hope of escape. He would cry but he doesn't know how. No feeling sorry.

No life and death. Only this, what's in between.

He steals a quarter. Further from freedom. He steals a new shirt. No chance of escaping.

Unsure, he tries to find himself but stops. He's hollow. He knows nothing else. His soul long since shattered. His here-and-there thoughts cloud judgment. Law isn't a word. Instinct is.

Kill or be killed.

Each stolen item, each piece of food shoved down his hungry maw. Each decision steals another part of his lacerated soul. Part of him left behind. He doesn't care. He never knew that part of him. Or that other part that was just left behind. Or that one. Or that one.

On and on…

Numb, he already lost the part of him that made him feel. Gone a year maybe two ago. So hard to do, but necessary for survival. An animal. A creature.

A monster.

Everywhere he looks he sees the psychedelic bars of his cage. Up, the dark and gloomy clouds. Down, the bleak and hard pavement. To the sides, fighting and killing just to survive. He doesn't have the key. There's no door for him.

He's already dead here.

A baby born in the hospital is stolen and killed and eaten. Doomed, too, from the start. The baby, one of the lucky ones.

Dead instantly. No suffering. Set free.

As months and years wear on he declines proposals of brotherhood. He already knows too well what betrayal means.

But when he's twenty it changes. He makes his first slingshot. Kills a bird. Eats for a week. Bones and feathers and all.

His friend or enemy - can't know - tries to steal it.

He is too strong for the thieves. He keeps it. Victory. Eventually sells it for a dime.

Victory.

A year passes. Hundreds more slingshots made dimes and eventually quarters. He makes them stronger and better. Sells them for a dollar.

At twentyone he is able to buy his first pair of shoes. The damage done to his feet already irreversible. He has nine toes.

As he sleeps his shoes are stolen. His money too. What's left is four dollars.

Enough for weeks of food or

for a bottle of pills.

He goes to the dumpsters the site of his childhood. The place where he first killed and would last kill. Finally he learned the way out of his cage, this city, this suffering. It was a word called suicide.

He swallows every pill in the bottle with his own dry spit. Made of ashes and years of suffering. Begins to get dizzy. Falls in the stinking and bloodstained dirt.

Consciousness cleared he finally knows that six years ago he'd done the largest favor to the one he'd loved most. Who made him feel. When he killed his own brother for a piece of bread he set him free. He ended Cody's suffering after only fifteen years.

Cody was a lucky one too like the man who left and the baby, eaten.

The light begins fading. Dark encroaching. Peace almost upon him.

Where is he? He finally knows. He is everywhere in the world.

As he passes out almost dead his last thought: isthiswhatitscometo?

Zack becomes one of the lucky ones at age 22. It was his birthday.

* * *

Please feel free to review honestly, but, once again, please remember this was an experiment. I'd love to get reviews telling me how people liked or didn't like it. With this new style I need as much input as possible.


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